I Never Went Hungry
by Sintari
Summary: Duo tells Quatre a story from his past on L2 and it explains some of his motivations later in life. One-shot ficlet, 2&4 (friendship), please R


**I Never Went Hungry**

**By: Sintari**

_Summary: Duo tells Quatre a story from his past on L2_

_Pairings: 2&4 (friendship), perhaps hints of previous 2x4 if you want to read it that way_

_Warnings: PG13 for language, sexual innuendo and description of death; major angst_

_Disclaimer: Oh if I owned Gundam Wing… I would share them with all the wonderful fanfic authors out there!! But I don't, so please don't sue me!_

_Archive: If you'd like to, just ask; currently on  Fanfiction dot net & Mediaminer dot org_

_Notes: Thanks to Princess and Kiyakatori for the quick and thorough beta read _

_Dedication: To Rhiannon, who had love she couldn't express_

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"You sure can put it away," Quatre's expression was half awe, half disgust as he watched Duo slather mustard on a sandwich he would only have considered appetizing three condiments ago.

"I never went hungry," Duo agreed, heedless of the mayonnaise blotch on his cheek. But the braided boy's ubiquitous smile didn't reach his eyes. Quatre's space heart thrummed. Something had just hit a nerve with Duo. The sandwich was a good cover, but he realized that the other boy was out of bed and making himself at home in the Winner kitchen because of three a.m. thoughts. Thoughts too painful to withstand the light of day. Quatre knew them intimately.

The blond empath took care of the mayo problem with a quick swipe of his thumb, placing the digit in Duo's mouth for him to lick it off. "I never liked that stuff," Quatre commented casually.

"I seem to recall you having enough viscous white substances in your diet," Duo quipped, but it had taken him a beat to deliver the punch line, and now Quatre was positive something was wrong.

"A little slow on that one. What's up?"

Tender fingers slid up under Duo's loosened braid, massaging the nape of his neck, one of the very few parts of the Deathscythe pilot's body that didn't sport a year round tan.

At first, Duo was tense, but soon enough he submitted to the lure of Winner's should-be-patented Magic Fingers. Quatre didn't say a word. He was just there, almost out of the other boy's line of sight. He watched Duo, who in turn was staring at his sandwich like it was a snake. Or a window.

"There was this girl on L2," Duo began slowly. "A war orphan like me. But she… she wasn't nearly as lucky as I was. Yeah, I know, me lucky? But really I was. This girl… God Quatre, I can't even remember her name."

"It was a long time ago," Quatre murmured, stroking his friend's hair, encouraging him to go on.

"She was born naturally, and something was wrong with her. She couldn't walk. And she couldn't talk well enough to make herself understood. Her mother had made a home for them in the Devil's Corner, the same shanty town where I stayed a lot. You know the type, saddled with a kid, different man around every night. Sometimes they would disappear for awhile, move to a real house with some guy, but inevitably they were always back."

Duo stared at the sandwich for a long second. "Her mom always blamed this girl. God dammit, how could I have forgotten her name? But the mother always got drunk and loudly told everybody how good her life could have been if only her daughter had never been born." Duo made a sound, like a bark and a snort in one. Hand still massaging, Quatre sidled into a chair at Duo's side. The braided boy was still staring at some point a million miles away and Quatre knew that his gaze had not settled on the curtains in the Winner kitchen, but somewhere on L2, in the distant past.

"She liked me though. The little girl, I mean. I would go and play with her sometimes. For the longest time I thought she was about four or five. She was so tiny, with these skinny little arms and legs. But somebody told me once, after, that she was thirteen years old. She was thirteen and she couldn't have weighed more than thirty pounds. But her smile…." Duo's face crumpled a little, then quickly composed itself. "Her smile was like thirty suns. If we could have bottled it, we could have had electricity in that awful fucking place…. And she loved for me to tickle her. She couldn't talk, but she sure could laugh." A small smile now. "When somebody she liked came around, she could recognize their footsteps. She would perk up and try to lift herself off the pallet where she always stayed. Sometimes her mom stayed gone for a long time and I would watch her. If nighttime came, and her mother wasn't there to give her a kiss, this little girl's eyes would well up with tears. Some people said she was retarded, but I think she had love that she just couldn't express."

Quatre was nodding. He tried to meet Duo's eyes, but the other boy turned his head in the opposite direction, purposefully avoiding him. "Nothing's permanent on the streets, you know," he continued. "For a while me and Solo hooked up with this gang of older kids. You wouldn't have approved," he added, with maybe just a trace of humor in his voice. "And so I didn't make it back to that part of town for awhile. We had found a place where we could steal food pretty easily, and I hate to say it, but I didn't even think about her once while I was gone."

Quatre noticed for the first time that Duo's chin was trembling. The braided boy looked away, anywhere but into those sympathetic blue eyes, but continued in a quiet monotone. "Well, inevitably, our source of free food ran out. And we ended up right back at the Devil's Corner, like always. They lived in this tent, strung up between a fence and this stack of old tires. I thought I would stop in, you know? See how my little girl was doing." Quatre traced a formless pattern on his arm. "The first thing I noticed when I got close was the smell. And I yelled out, 'Anna!' That was her name, oh God, that was her name. And I yelled it out, even though she couldn't talk, see. There was no way she could have answered me. But I could picture her big green eyes widening, and her little body trying to lift itself up like she always did… I didn't knock, because you can't really knock on a tent anyway. Her mom wasn't there, so I just… I just pulled the sheet back."

Quatre sat perfectly still, his fingers had stopped their motion. Duo brought two fingers to his lips.

"There were flies in her eyes, Quatre. There were flies in her green, green eyes."

Quatre gasped. Present day Duo was reliving the emotions of his young counterpart, and through him, so was Quatre. Anticipation, shock and horror. Endless horror. Horror like a cold finger at the base of your spine. Then guilt like a rusty nail driven through your gut. He hoped that was the end of the story, but it wasn't.

"I never saw her mother again," Duo continued. "I tried to get somebody to do something about it. But people told me not to interfere. That it could have been natural causes. Not that her mother – the person who's supposed to love you no matter what – left her on a pallet in a tent between a fence and a stack of old tires. Not that she was deliberately left to die. Do you know how long it takes to starve to death, Quatre?" Duo's voice threatened to break. "It takes hours. It takes days."

"Duo…" Quatre broke in. But the other boy held up a hand to silence him. He was going to get this all out.

"She had love that she couldn't express…" he trailed off. "There were times, before Maxwell Church, when I felt that I didn't have a reason to live. Sure I had Solo and the gang to look after, but what difference would it really have made if I didn't show up one morning? Or what if I gave up? Quit watching for every opportunity to steal a crust of bread, stopped listening to every footstep behind me and sleeping with one eye open. On the streets, there are a lot of ways out. You don't know how hard it is, Quatre, when every meal presents a challenge. You and I have gone on missions that took less planning than some of our gang's schemes to find food."

"Sometimes I had to do things… terrible things. Again, you wouldn't approve. But after Anna… Well, it somehow seemed like more of a sin to go hungry."

Duo picked up his enormous sandwich with both hands. "And I never went hungry."


End file.
